


The Edge of Reason

by Ais (mikaaislin)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Science Fiction & Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 01:57:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15808995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikaaislin/pseuds/Ais
Summary: When she opened her eyes and stood, it was night. The constellations shone brightly in the sky, a wheel of white lights slowly turning against the velvet black, and the leaves of the trees barely shifted in the breeze. She heard a rustling noise in the distance, and walked confidently in the direction despite how little terrain could clearly be seen. When she stepped into the opening, the red-haired woman startled visibly and twirled down into a crouch. Light glinted off the knife in her hand. Her green eyes were sharp with suspicion and danger."You'll die if you keep walking straight," Julienne told her.The woman's eyes only narrowed. "Who are you?" she demanded. Her voice was warm gravel on a summer road."It isn't important at the moment. What is important is that twenty steps from now you will die."The woman hazarded a glance in the direction she'd been walking, before returning her intent stare upon Julienne. "Why?"Julienne's head tilted to the side. What a curious question. Molasses never ceased to intrigue her. "Because it's what will happen in this timeline."





	The Edge of Reason

It was the way things were when the music slowed and eventually stilled. She picked up each piece that had fallen apart, carefully so as not to disturb the delicate threads holding it all together as gossamer strands, and in her palms the pieces shone a dull gunmetal grey. Some of the parts still tried to move, not realizing yet the time had come and gone when it was a working unit. When it was whole. The pieces twitched the way all living beings twitched at the end of their life; broken and unmended but so very certain that it wasn't that way at all.

 _Tell me this isn't real,_ she had asked them the moment her toes had first touched the water, but of course they could not say those words because the base truth of their existence was that they could not lie.

She had wished for many things, once. But then the music had slowed and eventually stilled, and she could wish for things no more.

#

The water was as still as the dead, or at least as still as Julienne had once believed the dead to be. She had later learned there were so many things happening inside the body, as many things in death as in life, to the point that calling the dead 'still' was a misnomer. The dead writhed, or at least the body did, but perhaps the soul itself was still.

The water was as still as the soul. 

It bled a deep crimson light that glowed just beneath the surface with no discernible origin. Beyond the black basin of its shores, the dark sentinels of trees whipped furiously about in the wind. The sky above was black as only the night could be, and even the stars had seemed to retreat beyond the ink. The moon was missing, but then, it had never properly existed in this realm.

Julienne stepped to the edge of the water and crouched. The reflection it showed was a version of her surroundings on a day when it was bright with morning dew and still as the soul's water. But if she looked beyond the surface to the water beneath, she saw the waves that surged in the maelstrom; white caps that rose and fell and violently crashed into the shore that marked the edge of her vision. She held her hand out, so very close to the water she could feel the cool comfort of it, but not close enough to feel the damp. When her eyes closed, she saw the other versions of this day, this water, this lake, this forest, and she filtered through them carefully until she found the one she needed.

The woman's red hair was a beacon in the night. In her mind, Julienne pulled on the edges of the fragments until she had tugged it closer; a stick nudging a lone puzzle piece carefully across water. When it was close enough for her to see the green of the woman's eyes, and the freckles dotting her pale skin, Julienne pulled. Her hand snatched into a fist, her knuckles grazing the water and sending out the only ripples this version of the lake could see.

When she opened her eyes and stood, it was night. The constellations shone brightly in the sky, a wheel of white lights slowly turning against the velvet black, and the leaves of the trees barely shifted in the breeze. She heard a rustling noise in the distance, and walked confidently in the direction despite how little terrain could clearly be seen. When she stepped into the opening, the red-haired woman startled visibly and twirled down into a crouch. Light glinted off the knife in her hand. Her green eyes were sharp with suspicion and danger.

"You'll die if you keep walking straight," Julienne told her.

The woman's eyes only narrowed. "Who are you?" she demanded. Her voice was warm gravel on a summer road.

"It isn't important at the moment. What is important is that twenty steps from now you will die."

The woman hazarded a glance in the direction she'd been walking, before returning her intent stare upon Julienne. "Why?"

Julienne's head tilted to the side. What a curious question. Molasses never ceased to intrigue her. "Because it's what will happen in this timeline."

The woman's jaw shifted; a tick of power running along the edge. "And if I don't go straight, I won't die?"

"All Molasses dies at some point. It is how it is. But you will not die tonight if you change your direction. Is it something you wish to do?"

"Die?"

"Live."

To her credit, the woman considered that seriously. "Will I regret living?"

"Only you will know."

"Will my life change significantly?"

"Only you can decide."

"Will something terrible happen if I change my fate?"

"There is no fate. There are only choices. There is nothing terrible or wonderful, there are only results."

"Then why did you tell me any of this if you can't tell me anything else?"

Julienne watched the woman curiously. "I am conducting an experiment."

"On what?"

"Free will."

The woman frowned. "Who are you?"

"It is unimportant. What is your decision?"

There was a long moment of silence and then the woman straightened. She slid the knife back into her belt, and nodded curtly at Julienne. "Thank you for the warning." 

She strode in the direction she had previously been headed. 

Julienne fell into step next to her. "Why do you continue?"

"Because I believe in order and balance. And I can't believe that if I change this now that something else won't change later—something that could be worse for everyone. If I was meant to die here, then there must be a reason. So I choose to believe perhaps I won't die after all and if I do, that it must somehow be worth it to someone, somewhere."

She had reached her nineteenth step, and looked over confidently at Julienne with a smile. "So. Thank—"

Her foot met empty air, and for a moment her face turned so pale she seemed to glow, and her eyes widened as far as they could go. In one second she was next to Julienne and in the next she was freefalling, her body wheeling slowly and her scream turning quieter and quieter until it ended, abruptly, with a distant crunch. 

Julienne stared down at the base of the cliff and sighed. She did not think she would ever understand free will.

#

"I told you to leave them alone. You'll never get a proper answer no matter how long you study them. They can't be understood."

"It must be faith that I do not understand," Julienne mused, leaning against one hand with her elbow propped against the rock. "They put their faith in something unknowable above all else, when I am one of the entities they consider unknowable right in front of them and I am telling them what will happen."

"That's likely the issue. They can't believe something they can't fully know would ever be where they can see it. Thus, they believe you must be something else."

"But it confuses me. Why believe in something if you won't believe it when you see it?"

"As I said, you'll never get a proper answer no matter how long you study them. They'd probably be more likely to believe you're a psychic or can do magic than they would believe you are as you are."

Julienne sighed. She rocked her foot lightly against the water at her feet, watching the ripples spread languidly until reverberating against the shore. The sky was a deep violet; the moon a blood orange. The stars wheeled visibly but idly above her head. She could not see the entity she spoke to, and neither did it have a name, but still they found each other as they always did when she was wont to consider the brevity and incomprehensibility of mankind.

"I wish for something more."

Julienne did not realize she was about to say the words until they were already out of her mouth. There was a beat of silence before the reply came, as always a collection of countless whispers layered atop one another until it became a sigh of the wind.

"What do you wish for?"

"Something. No, perhaps someone. I wish to study someone. Converse with them. Discuss their viewpoints and understand their reasoning."

"Does such a person exist who could survive here?"

Julienne slumped against the rock. "That is an answer even I do not know."

"Perhaps that should be your next experiment."

"I do not wish to harm Molasses; I only wish to observe it. I fear if I brought one here, it would die or be injured, and it would be a wasted life."

"Then give them the option to choose."

Julienne cocked her head at the thought, and then nodded. "That is an acceptable solution."

"It may take time to find the right one."

"Time, at the least, is something I always have."

**Author's Note:**

> I first posted this October 18, 2014, on my Goodreads page but if I remember correctly I had written it some time before then. I don't fully recall my inspiration for this, but I like to think of Julienne as a combination of a god and a fury. She can see the threads of fate, or at least the natural progression of consequences based on previous decisions and circumstances, so she knows what will happen. The realm she spends most of her time is divorced from the reality of mankind, sort of like Olympus by Aki.
> 
> I think if I were to ever write more in this, it would probably end up f/f, and I might roll it into the universe where Deity exists. You haven't met them yet but if you read this story in the future, then look for another story by me called Five Star Review to see what I mean. I could see Deity and Julienne living in the same universe, both spiritual entities with very different views of humanity.
> 
> PS: I have no idea what to tag this one... sci-fi/fantasy doesn't really seem right. What would this even be??


End file.
